Late 19th century French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was born to an aristocratic family who dated their lineage back over 1000 years. Unfortunately, by the time Henri was born, the family fortune was lost and all that was left was a country home and the family name. Toulouse-Lautrec broke his legs at age 12 and 14, and his legs failed to heal properly, stunting his growth and leaving Toulouse-Lautrec incredibly self-conscious. At 4'5", Toulouse-Lautrec could no longer accompany his father on hunting trips but left him with time to draw. In the 1870s, he left for Paris to become an artist.Because he felt women from his own social class only talked to him out of pity or obligation, Toulouse-Lautrec was much more comfortable with the Montmarte district of Paris. In the bars, cabarets, and brothels, Toulouse-Laturec found his subjects, audience, and patrons. This demimonde (French, "half world")
occupied an interesting place in the rapidly modernizing Paris: a strange type of freedom where people carouse, act, drink, dance, and gamble. Only modernization and industrialization could make this possible: people no longer had to work sun up to sun down, and Baron George Haussmann's newly renovated Paris had wide sidewalks with gas lamps so that venturing out at night was safer. And significantly, due to various capitalistic and industrial processes since the Renaissance, leisure was now a business and a commodity. It is not difficult to psychoanalyze Toulouse-Lautrec's draw to the demimonde. Among the "freaks" of polite Parisian society (which still clung to traditional social distinctions) he felt quite at home amidst the dark Montemarte nightlife with prostitutes, actors, performers, and other outcasts.
As an artist, Toulouse-Lautrec was prolific and progressive with his use of line, color, and composition. His Montemarte subjects as well as their depiction are distinctively modern. This is one of Toulouse-Lautrec's most well-known paintings:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, c. 1892-95, oil on canvas, approx. 4' x 4.62'.
Art Institute of Chicago. Author photo.
Art Institute of Chicago. Author photo.
Actress May Milton's greenish face peers (leers?) at us from the right foreground, lit by the late-19th century stage technology that used actual gelatin screens to create colored light (now, these are plastic sheets known as "gels"). Behind her are various performers, dancers, and patrons of the Moulin Rouge - including a self-portrait of the artist (above the orange-red hair of the woman in the center of the canvas). The Moulin Rouge was described as "Vice up for auction; one could put [a sign] on the door front: 'People, abandon all modesty here.'" Several elements of this painting indicate that the Moulin Rouge isn't necessarily a happy, welcoming place: Milton's green mask-like, everyone else in the painting has their back turned to us, and the ground is unstable as it rises toward the picture plane, disorienting us like we've drank too much absinthe.
Toulouse-Lautrec's subjects include the "others" of Paris: prostitutes. In the 19th century, prostitution was seen as a major illness of modernity and urbanity, and usually the woman's fault despite sheer demand for their services. (We'll not get into the gender implications now, or the sheer number of prositute pictures from the later 19th century.) Toulouse-Lautrec preferred liasons with prostitutes : because of the nature of the job, they were all business, and there were no ambiguities about their intentions. In the 1890s, he painted more than 50 paintings of prostitutes, such as this one:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon of the Brothel of the Rue des Moulins, 1894, oil on canvas, 43 x 52". Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, France.
In one of the most expensive brothels in Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec shows the downtime in between meetings with clients. He has contrasted the slouching positions and glazed expressions with the lavish and glamorous interior design to show a side of the women that their clients do not care about. Look at the woman at the right in the long white nightdress: the straight-backed posture and the forced smile indicate the carefree woman generous with intimacy with her clients is more of a business choice, a persona, than a personality trait. In this regard, as client and sympathizer, Toulouse-Lautrec gives a more nuanced and wistful, but not pitiful, depiction.
Perhaps audiences are most familiar not with Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings, but his posters for Montemarte entertainment. He created 393 lithographic posters, and are his most influential and longest-lived works. Look at these and tell me you've never seen them in a dorm room somewhere:
Toulouse-Lautrec's subjects include the "others" of Paris: prostitutes. In the 19th century, prostitution was seen as a major illness of modernity and urbanity, and usually the woman's fault despite sheer demand for their services. (We'll not get into the gender implications now, or the sheer number of prositute pictures from the later 19th century.) Toulouse-Lautrec preferred liasons with prostitutes : because of the nature of the job, they were all business, and there were no ambiguities about their intentions. In the 1890s, he painted more than 50 paintings of prostitutes, such as this one:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon of the Brothel of the Rue des Moulins, 1894, oil on canvas, 43 x 52". Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, France.In one of the most expensive brothels in Paris, Toulouse-Lautrec shows the downtime in between meetings with clients. He has contrasted the slouching positions and glazed expressions with the lavish and glamorous interior design to show a side of the women that their clients do not care about. Look at the woman at the right in the long white nightdress: the straight-backed posture and the forced smile indicate the carefree woman generous with intimacy with her clients is more of a business choice, a persona, than a personality trait. In this regard, as client and sympathizer, Toulouse-Lautrec gives a more nuanced and wistful, but not pitiful, depiction.
Perhaps audiences are most familiar not with Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings, but his posters for Montemarte entertainment. He created 393 lithographic posters, and are his most influential and longest-lived works. Look at these and tell me you've never seen them in a dorm room somewhere:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, various four color lithographic posters, c. 1890-95.
These prints are easy to read: broad areas of flat color, and the actions and gestures of the silhouetted figures are clearly conveyed. For me, Toulouse-Lautrec's lines are the most compelling element to his posters: sinuous, confident, graphic. The way they flow up and down and around the canvas, outline forms, and still indicate handwritten script - the lines are alive and vibrant, like the nightlife they are used to advertise.
Prints are a democratic medium, and the perfect medium for Paris after a long century of revolutions, reconstructions, and socio-political upheaval. These lithographic posters were hung in the streets with the understanding that they'd be viewed by people from various social classes, occupations, genders, persuasions, and sexual orientations. By being cheap and easy to produce, the print's very construction and nature makes it an emblem of modernity: advertising, mass media, and disposable. Furthermore, the prints' function as advertisements become representative of that unique moment in human history when capitalism and culture meet: anonymous urban audiences as consumers of cultural products.
Finally, we need to consider how the spectator and the act of viewing is treated by the artist. At the Moulin Rouge has a unique tension to it because the spectator is confronted by May Milton but not acknowledge by anyone else. The diagonal railing in the lower left corner prevents us from entering the painting's space, reinforcing to the viewer, that you can watch but not participate. The casual, behind-the-scenes look at the Rue des Moulins brothel is about careful observation: seeing what others can't/won't/don't see, and the women either don't know or don't care that they are being watched. Our vantage point is odd; we are slightly above and removed from the women, but close enough so that the woman's body extends out of our view (notice how her foot is cut off at the right). The posters don't care who looks at them. Toulouse-Lautrec, retreating to the Montemarte nightlife to escape being stared at (and thus pitied or becoming a passive object of looking) has created a life and art about the implications of looking and watching.
Prints are a democratic medium, and the perfect medium for Paris after a long century of revolutions, reconstructions, and socio-political upheaval. These lithographic posters were hung in the streets with the understanding that they'd be viewed by people from various social classes, occupations, genders, persuasions, and sexual orientations. By being cheap and easy to produce, the print's very construction and nature makes it an emblem of modernity: advertising, mass media, and disposable. Furthermore, the prints' function as advertisements become representative of that unique moment in human history when capitalism and culture meet: anonymous urban audiences as consumers of cultural products.
Finally, we need to consider how the spectator and the act of viewing is treated by the artist. At the Moulin Rouge has a unique tension to it because the spectator is confronted by May Milton but not acknowledge by anyone else. The diagonal railing in the lower left corner prevents us from entering the painting's space, reinforcing to the viewer, that you can watch but not participate. The casual, behind-the-scenes look at the Rue des Moulins brothel is about careful observation: seeing what others can't/won't/don't see, and the women either don't know or don't care that they are being watched. Our vantage point is odd; we are slightly above and removed from the women, but close enough so that the woman's body extends out of our view (notice how her foot is cut off at the right). The posters don't care who looks at them. Toulouse-Lautrec, retreating to the Montemarte nightlife to escape being stared at (and thus pitied or becoming a passive object of looking) has created a life and art about the implications of looking and watching.
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